Sci-fi enthusiast. Yarn addict. Zombie rights activist.

Improved stomach, now with venting

tl:DR – My incision broke open more. I went to the doctor and we’re treating it with antiseptic at the site. No need for antibiotics just yet. I am mostly fine, just more ventilated in the stomach region than planned for at this time. I go back for a recheck on Monday unless I start running a fever or start having strange smells from the area.

The post has details after the jump, but no pictures (duh.) If you are grossed out by medical details, you may want to skip reading today.

So, the spot on my stomach along the incision site that was weeping broke open even more than it had been yesterday. It worked out for me, since I planned to go to the doctor anyway. At my appointment, the doctor determined that it had broken open down to the fascia of my stomach today because instead of healing properly, a seroma had developed. They’re common with abdominal surgeries and the doctor says that I’ve been doing everything for wound care correctly. Sometimes these things just happen.

A seroma (for those who don’t know) is basically a hole filled with serous fluid – the fluid that makes up blood plasma. We had to open up the seroma area of my incision more completely, drain the fluid, wash it, and then pack it back with (basically) antiseptic gauze because it looked like there might be the starts of a tiny bit of infection. This will nip that in the bud.

I still can’t feel anything in that area. The nerve function hasn’t come back from surgery yet. I mean, I can feel pressure and cold, but not pain, so the whole thing was just weird feeling. Not at all painful, though it might sound so.

I got to see part of my six pack. It was not as cool as the popular literature makes such things seem, but I was down with it.

Okay. I freaked out completely, but the fascia is healed completely, so my guts aren’t going to be falling out any time soon and I don’t need emergency surgery, so that’s a good thing.

At least three or four people in gloves touched my stomach muscles while I was talking to them and telling them things like, “That feels weird. No, it doesn’t hurt. Do what you need to do. Do you want to show your intern? I’m cool with that. It really doesn’t hurt at all.”

Which is a pretty strange thing to be telling people who are poking around in your open wound and touching your actual stomach muscles. I kind of felt like Wolverine as long as I wasn’t using the mirror to see what was going on, which I needed to do because I need to repack the wound with antiseptic gauze twice a day over the weekend.

Then it was much more disconcerting. Like, Holy Carp! That’s an awfully wide deep hole in my belly. That’s NOT right.

I go back on Monday to have everything checked out to see how it’s doing. If all goes well, we’ll change the packing material over to gauze with saline solution and start getting things closed up again.